From: garyag@ix.netcom.com (Gary Aguilar)
Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk,alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Cyril Wecht - Was the Rockefeller Commission right he endorsed 2, from the rear?
Date: 10 Jul 2002 21:24:01 -0400
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Among things that have dribbled out about prior "expert"
investigations of JFK's autopsy evidence, there is one that I found
particularly fascinating from the Rockefeller Commission: the idea
that noted Skeptic, Cyril Wecht, had endorsed "Two Bullets, From the
Rear." As we all know, they got that all wrong. But that's not all
Rockefeller and Co. got wrong. As I've written:
The Rockefeller Commission astonishingly reported that, after a five
hour deposition, Wecht, the staunch Warren skeptic, had "testified
that the available evidence all points to the President being struck
only by two bullets coming from his rear, and that no support can be
found for theories which postulate gunmen to the front or right front
of the Presidential car."1 Summing up, the Rockefeller Commission
reported that it had tried in vain to find either a shred of
medical/autopsy evidence, or a morsel of expert opinion, to support
conspiracy.
But within days of its June 1975 publication, a crack appeared in the
ultra smooth façade of the Commission's report. On June 12th, the New
York Times reported that Cyril Wecht had complained that "his views of
President Kennedy's murder were distorted by the Rockefeller
Commission." In its June 23, 1975 edition, Newsweek Magazine reported
that "the flap over the [Rockefeller Commission's] apparent fudging of
[Wecht's] views seemed enough to ensure that this report on the JFK
assassination, like the ones before it, would fail to lay to rest the
suspicions of the conspiratorialists."2 In published interviews, Wecht
proposed a simple way for the government to allay the
conspiratorialists' suspicions: he called for "the commission to
release a transcript of his statements."3 "If that transcript shows in
any way I have withdrawn or revised my thoughts of the Warren Report,"
Wecht challenged, "I'll eat the transcript on the steps of the White
House." 4
1) Rockefeller Stonewalls Wecht
Thereafter, a fascinating and illuminating story unfolded. The Vice
President stonewalled, refusing Wecht's repeated personal requests to
him to see his own interview, which scarcely threatened national
security. The famed coroner was, however, ultimately vindicated - 23
years later. [Only in 1998 did the Oliver Stone-inspired JFK Review
Board send Wecht a copy of his testimony, finally eliminating any
doubt about the Commission's chicanery.5] With less irony than one
would hope, for all the government's preoccupation with keeping
Wecht's testimony secret, it made an exception for a Warren Commission
defender. It shared parts of it for use by one Jacob Cohen, the author
of a harsh anticonspiracy article published in Commentary Magazine in
October 1975.6
Not the sort of doctor to take his medicine lying down, Wecht went
into action. He and two other well respected forensic authorities7
publicly charged that, "the Commission has set up a panel of
governmental sycophants to defend the Warren Report." In a May 5, 1975
press release, Wecht charged that "all the members of the panel
appointed by the Rockefeller Commission have strong ties to the
federal government and close professional relationship with
individuals who have formerly participated in studies defending the
Warren Report."
Wecht emphasized Belin's Warren Commission roots (The unbiased Belin
was one of Rocky's JFK investigators). Wecht also charged that, "The
(medical) panel itself is made up of people who have been associated
with the Baltimore Medical Examiner's Office, the Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine, Department of Radiology, and the Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology, three facilities which either supplied the members of
the original autopsy team or from which selected members of a previous
panel had been appointed by the Justice Department in 1968 to defend
the Warren Report."8
Wecht's intemperate claims were not entirely without foundation.
Rockefeller appointee Werner U. Spitz, MD, the Detroit Medical
Examiner, was a close professional colleague of one of the Clark Panel
members, Baltimore Medical Examiner Russell Fisher, MD, under whom
Spitz had served for several years.9 Richard Lindenberg, MD, a
Baltimore-based, State of Maryland neuropathologist, was described in
a once-secret Rockefeller Commission memo as having provided
"consultation to the Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland
[Russell Fisher] - but is subordinate to him."10 Panelist Fred Hodges,
MD, a neuroradiologist, was picked from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins
University. That institution had contributed Russell Morgan, MD, the
radiologist who had made the X-ray mistakes discussed above as a Clark
Panel consultant. Pathologist, Lt. Col. Robert R. McMeeken, MC, was
appointed from Pierre Finck's alma mater, the Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology. The Warren Commission consultant who had failed to note
the marked discrepancies between the test skulls he shot up and JFK's
skull, Dr. Alfred Olivier, completed Rockefeller's team of independent
and impartial consultants.
C) A Preordained Outcome?
Declassified files show that besides publicizing the medical panel's
potential conflicts of interests, Wecht was also instrumental in
eliciting evidence the panelists had had a predisposition. On April
15, 1975, Rockefeller counsel Robert Olsen wrote a memo to file
concerning a telephone conversation he had had that day with Wecht. In
it, he noted that Wecht had asked, "whether the Commission would be
getting access to the following items which have not been to date made
available for examination since the autopsy." Namely, (1) JFK's
brain, (2) Kodachrome slides of the interior of the President's chest,
and (3) Microscopic slides of tissue taken from various parts of the
President's body, especially those related to wound areas.11
Three days later, David Belin, who had "removed himself" from the
Kennedy aspect of the probe, and Robert Olsen sat down with their
experts for what an internal memo called a "Panel of Consultants
Meeting." The purpose was to review evidence: JFK's autopsy
photographs and X-rays, relevant Zapruder film frames, JFK's clothing,
the bullet fragments, etc. Belin/Olsen asked the panelists to respond
to a list of 14 written questions. Among them, whether examining the
missing evidence that Wecht had specified - JFK's brain, tissue
slides, and chest photographs - was "necessary to arrive at a reliable
judgement concerning the number of shots which hit the President or
the angles from which they were fired."12
What is perhaps most remarkable about this is what was left unsaid in
both Belin/Olsen's 14 questions about this evidence, and in the
panelists's responses. As Cyril Wecht first disclosed in a 1972 New
York Times interview, JFK's brain, tissue slides and chest photographs
were missing.13 Yet Belin/Olsen were only interested in the value of
this missing evidence to expert opinion, not in pursuing the mystery
of why this key evidence was missing. The panelists gave responses
that lent credence to Wecht's skepticism about their impartiality.
Werner U. Spitz's answer was typical of all the responses: "I do not
believe that an examination of the President's brain would contribute
significantly to a clarification of the circumstances [of the
murder];" and, "Microscopic examination of skin slides from the bullet
wounds would not, in my opinion, have added pertinent data."14 But was
Spitz right there was no significant value, or pertinent data, to be
found in JFK's brain or skin slides? Wecht has persuasively argued
otherwise.
In a New York Times interview, Wecht pointed out that, "Entering
bullets burn and soil tissues around the wound of entry but not at the
point of exit. Thus, the microscopic slides might have settled the
question whether the bullets that passed through the President's head
and body had been fired from the rear."15 The Chief Medical Examiner
of San Antonio, Texas, Vincent J.M. DiMaio, MD, supports Wecht's
position. In his authoritative textbook, "Gunshot Wounds - Practical
Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques," the
forensic expert explained how entrance wounds can be distinguished
from exit wounds by the microscopic examination of tissue samples
taken from the edges of bullet wounds.
"Microscopic sections through a gunshot wound of entrance show a
progressive increase in alteration of the epithelium and dermis as one
proceeds from the periphery of the abrasion ring to the margin of the
zone of compressed, deformed cells ... Exit wounds ... with rare
exceptions, do not possess an abrasion ring."16 Besides the abrasion
ring, DiMaio says the microscopic presence of gray-colored "tissue
wipe" on a specimen - soot deposited on the skin surface - also tags
the tissue as coming from an entrance wound.17
One might defend Spitz by noting that even if the slides weren't
available for later review, the original autopsy report makes their
meaning clear enough. Unfortunately, the autopsy report's description
of the skin damage is sketchy. In its entirety, the autopsy report has
only this to say about the skin:
"Sections through the wounds in the occipital and upper right
posterior thoracic regions are essentially similar. In each there is
loss of continuity of the epidermis with coagulation necrosis of the
tissues at the wound margins. The scalp wound exhibits several small
fragments of bone at its margins in the subcutaneous tissue."18
DiMaio emphasized an important point JFK's pathologists ignored: As
one progressively scans from the periphery of an entrance wound - the
outer edge of the abrasion collar - toward the margin of the bullet
hole, one expects to see a progressive increase in the amount of
tissue damage in an entrance wound. One might also find "tissue wipe"
in tissues near such a wound which, whether present or absent in
JFK's, would have been worth documenting. Thus, it's likely the slides
would have added data. But that is not the only data the slides might
have revealed; they might also have offered additional insight into
the quality of the original work.
In other words, if Rockefeller's experts had independently determined
that the original autopsy team had missed the correct location for the
entrance wound by a whopping 10-cm, putting it not only in the wrong
part of the head but also in the wrong bone, why would a vague
description of tissue samples by the same group of incompetents be
satisfactory evidence about whether a wound was an entrance wound or
not? Unfortunately, Werner Spitz's position was not unique among
Rockefeller's experts. None of them hinted that the tissue slides
would have helped resolve questions about the Single Bullet Theory's
claim of which wounds were entrance and which exit.
Finally, while the available photographs of the brain were undoubtedly
helpful, it is hard to imagine that turning the real thing over in
one's hands would have offered forensic experts no significant
advantages over images. [And that's without considering recent
published doubts that have arisen about JFK's brain photographs from
the work of the Assassinations Records Review Board. In 1999 the Board
reported that there was evidence that two different "JFK" brains had
undergone post mortem examinations.19 And that the photographer of
record, John Stringer, had rejected the authenticity of the extant
brain photographs. Stringer claimed that he shot images of sections of
the brain, which are missing, and that the images in the current file
were not taken with the type of camera, or the kind of film, he had
used in 1963.20]
D) Rockefeller's Autopsy Experts: Errors and Omissions
This exceptional performance alone was sufficient reason not to scoff
at Wecht's charge that, by picking medical experts with such strong
ties to individuals involved in prior probes, Rockefeller had put the
fix in. A reading of the experts' findings provides additional reasons
to suppose the Clark Panel had influenced them: they made some of the
exact same mistakes the Clark Panelists had. Moreover, in a
transparent effort to buttress the Single Bullet Theory, one of
Rockefeller's experts, Richard Lindenberg, MD, grossly misrepresented
Governor John Connally's abrupt motions in the Zapruder film.
1) Kennedy's X-rays
As previously discussed, the Clark Panel had made three principal
errors in reading JFK's X-rays: 1) that there were bullet fragments in
JFK's neck, 2) that no bullet fragments were lodged on the left side
of JFK's skull, and that, 3) the trail of fragments across the skull
lined up between the supposed high entrance wound, 10-cm above the
external occipital protuberance, and the supposed high exit wound
toward the right front of Kennedy's skull. As discussed, there are no
bullet (or bone) fragments in JFK's neck; the opacities were shown by
the HSCA's forensic panel to be X-ray artifacts from problems during
the exposure or development of one image. Secondly, there indeed are a
few fragments on the left side of JFK's skull. Thirdly, the trail of
fragments does not line up with the supposed entrance wound - it is
approximately 5-cm higher.
Nevertheless, Rockefeller panelist, Fred J. Hodges, III, MD, Professor
of Neuroradiology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore,
Maryland, repeated the first two of the Clark Panel's errors. He
wrote, "Several very small fragments [are] near these fractures [of
the transverse process of C7 and T1, in JFK's neck] are thought to be
metallic but the exact technical factors are not available and these
tiny densities may be fragments of dense bone." He also said, "...
there are no metallic fragments or bullets in the left side [of JFK's
skull]."21
Richard Lindenberg, MD Rockefeller's neuropathology expert, repeated
the third error. Whereas, the Clark Panel wrote that the fragment
trail in JFK's skull, "if extended posteriorly, passes through the
above-mentioned (presumed high entrance) hole,"22 Lindenberg similarly
wrote, "Within the skull a great number of tiny lead particles ... are
distributed along an axis extending from the entrance hole to the
frontal region ... ."23 Lindenberg's enthusiasm for the official
version of Kennedy's death apparently prompted him to venture
unsuccessfully into an area in which he had no expertise: the Zapruder
film.
2) Neuropathologist Richard Lindenberg uses the Zapruder film and
JFK's back wound to validate the Single Bullet Theory
To buttress the Single Bullet Theory, Lindenberg wrote that the same
bullet struck both JFK and Governor John Connally. He argued that the
hit occurred during the interval JFK was behind a sign [Zapruder
frames 210 - 225] and thus while he was blocked from the view of
Abraham Zapruder who filmed the murder with a home movie camera. As
evidence Connally was wounded with the same bullet, Lindenberg
declared that "on the Zapruder film ... no abrupt change in their [the
limousine occupants'] behavior is noticeable until the President's
head was struck (frame 313) (sic), suggesting that no wounding of the
President or the Governor occurred during this period (frames 225-312)
(sic). This fact," Lindenberg claimed, "signifies that also the
Governor was injured while out of sight during frames 210-223."24
If Lindenberg had indeed been right, the Zapruder film would have
given a boost to the Single Bullet Theory. But he wasn't. In 1967
Josiah Thompson first described the abrupt change that is quite
obvious during these very frames to anyone viewing the movie: between
frames 234 and 238, "we see a very definite change indicating the
impact of a bullet," Thompson wrote. "[Connally's] right shoulder
collapses, his cheeks and face puff, and hair is disarranged."25
Thompson credits the Governor's abrupt change to the landing of a
different bullet than the one that hit JFK, a conclusion that the
Governor agreed with.
Whether it was the same bullet or not is less important here than that
Lindenberg wrongly read the film in a way that kept Oswald in the
dock. Ironically, in his own report to Rockefeller, Lindenberg's
fellow consultant, Werner Spitz, MD, devoted considerable attention
explaining why Connally's obvious, yet delayed, reaction in the
Zapruder film posed no obstacle to the Single Bullet Theory.26
Lindenberg's weakness was not confined to his obvious and
understandable unfamiliarity with the Zapruder film.
3) Dr. Richard Lindenberg, MD: Pattern of skin damage at JFK's back
wound proves the bullet came from above and behind JFK
The neuropathologist also concluded that, "The hole in the skin also
shows the markings of an entrance wound: a discreet zone of dark
discoloration of the marginal skin, most prominent at the upper and
lateral margin of the wound. This zone is practically absent at the
lower margin."27 With the upper and outer rim of the skin showing
greater bruising than the lower and inner portion of the wound's edge,
Lindenberg's "diagnostic" finding suggests that the bullet must have
been traveling in a downward and medial direction, and so from
Oswald's perch, when it hit JFK. It is on the basis of "hard" forensic
details such as this that cases may be won or lost. The appearance of
this wound was one of the planks upon which Lindenberg built his case
that JFK had been hit from above. But the expert appears to have been
off target here as well.
Rockefeller consultant Werner Spitz, MD wrote that, "There is no doubt
that the bullet which struck the President's back penetrated the skin
in a sharply upward direction, as is evident from the width of the
abrasion at the lower half of the bullet wound of entrance. The term
'sharply upward direction' (sic) is used because it is evident from
this injury that the missile traveled upwards within the body."28
(Author's emphasis.) To explain how a downward sloping bullet had
traveled upward through JFK, Spitz offered two possibilities: "Any
small [forward] inclination of the back will increase the downward
angle significantly." In essence, he was suggesting that JFK must have
been leaning at the moment the missile struck, and so the bullet
merely appeared to go upward while it actually continued downward. The
other possibility he offered to the upward path through JFK was that
the bullet was deviated from its course when it cracked one of the
transverse processes of JFK's spine.
HSCA forensic consultant Michael Baden, MD later endorsed Spitz's
assertion that the bullet had carved an upward path through JFK's
neck, although the HSCA's path was not "sharply upward." As the HSCA's
Forensic Panel Report put it, "the direction of the missile in the
body on initial penetration was slightly upward, inasmuch as the lower
margin of the skin is abraded in an upward direction. Furthermore, the
wound beneath the skin appears to be tunneled from below upward."29
Baden likewise agreed with Spitz's explanation that JFK was leaning
forward when he was hit. Unfortunately for both Baden and Spitz, in
motion picture images from both the Zapruder film and the Nix film,
one never loses sight of the fact that JFK at no point leans forward
far enough to allow the upward trajectory.
4) Outward-bent fibers in the front of JFK's shirt proved a bullet
exited the front of JFK's body
In his report, Dr. Lindenberg wrote that, "In the front of [JFK's]
shirt the bullet produced 1.2cm vertical slits in the overlapping
parts of the collar just below the collar button. The stumps of torn
fibers of the material point to the outside."30 In 1964, J. Edgar
Hoover had advised the Warren Commission that the FBI lab had found
the same thing: "The hole in the front of the shirt was a ragged,
slit-like hole and the ends of the torn threads around the hole were
bent outward. These characteristics are typical of an exit hole for a
projectile."31
Lindenberg was apparently unaware of what Warren skeptic Harold
Weisberg had long since discovered, and what the HSCA later reported:
"the FBI laboratory's initial description," which preceded Hoover's
letter, "did not offer evidence concerning the direction of the
fibers."32 No bent fibers were noted when the FBI lab initially
examined JFK's shirt. The first report they were bent outward appeared
in the record in Hoover's letter. The FBI report aside, might
Lindenberg have independently noted the outward bent of the fibers?
Perhaps. But even if he had, the HSCA's forensic experts gave little
weight to such evidence. "[T]he panel itself cannot assess evidentiary
significance to the fiber direction because of the numerous
intervening examinations."33
5) JFK's rearward jolt in the Zapruder film proves he was shot from
behind
Forensic panelist Robert R. McMeekin, MD, the Chief of the Division of
Aerospace Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,
derived one of the Rockefeller panelists' most interesting
conclusions: "The motion of the President's head is inconsistent with
the shot striking him from any direction other than the rear."34 In
other words, and against common sense, McMeekin said that JFK's
rearward jolt proves the shot came from behind. McMeekin's view is
shared by virtually no one else. Not even McMeekin's fellow
consultants agreed. Werner Spitz, for example, concluded that, "It is
impossible to conclude from the motion of the President's head and
body following the head shot, from which direction the shots came."35
Fred Hodges concluded that, "The motion of the President's head as
shown in the Zapruder film does not indicate the direction of the shot
in my opinion ... ."36
6) The hardness of forensic conclusions
The point to be emphasized is not that Rockefeller's experts were less
than perfect. Rather, it is that - whether autopsy evidence was
present or suspiciously absent, whether concluding the abrasion collar
in JFK's back wound was high or low, whether Zapruder supported the
Single Bullet Theory or not, whether JFK's bent shirt fibers, or his
head motion, proved a shot from behind - the forensic consultants
invariably found that the evidence always pointed to Oswald, or at
least shots from behind. While the credentials of the investigators
leaves nothing to be desired, unfortunately the product of their
labors does. And so it is clear that expert opinion from forensic
specialists is not always as hard, or as reliable, as its proponents
might argue.
E) Hedging bets with Rockefeller
With Rockefeller's selection of David Belin and Alfred Olivier from
the Warren Commission, and the fascinating performance of the forensic
experts who had had ties to previous investigations, it is not too
difficult to entertain suspicion that the outcome was a foregone
conclusion from the outset. This is perhaps not only true about JFK's
medical/autopsy investigation. In their authoritative 1995 book about
Nelson Rockefeller, Thy Will Be Done, authors Gerard Colby and
Charlotte Dennett suggest that President Ford put the fix into the CIA
probe the day he tapped Rockefeller to head it.
When former CIA head William Colby showed up willing to talk, for
example, Rockefeller "recommended keeping secret what in some cases
even Colby thought unnecessary." The V. P. had good reasons to do so,
according to Colby. "As Eisenhower's undersecretary of the Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare [HEW] and then as his special
assistant on Cold War strategy and psychological warfare, Nelson knew
about many of the CIA's covert actions, including the mind-control
experiments [which were funded partly through HEW] and assassination
plots. Indeed, as chairman of the National Security Council's Special
Group, he was briefed on all covert operations and would have had to
approve some of the most questionable ones, including coups and
assassinations abroad and continuing mind-control experiments at
home."37 Too bright a light cast on CIA abuses might have shown
Rockefeller standing in the shadows.
Therefore, it's not surprising that the medical consultants were not
the only Commission investigators who had potential conflicts of
interest. So did several of those who were active looking at the CIA.
Colby devoted a short appendix to the backgrounds of the Rockefeller
Commission members. Five of the members are of particular note:
* C. Douglas Dillon, as an Eisenhower undersecretary of state, had
participated in deliberations over the fate of Cuba's Fidel Castro and
the Congo's Patrice Lumumba, both marked for assassination by the CIA.
He was a director of the Institute of International Education, a
recipient of CIA funds.
* General Lyman Leminitzer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, had been active in planning the Bay of Pigs invasion and
supported the CIA's desire for direct U.S. military intervention, only
to be overruled by Kennedy.
* Erwin Griswold, former Harvard Law School dean, argued in 1971 on
behalf of the Nixon administration to block the New York Times from
publishing the Pentagon Papers. In 1972, he argued before the Supreme
Court that the U.S. Army's surveillance of citizens opposing the
Vietnam War violated neither federal law nor those citizens' First
Amendment rights to freedom of assembly or speech. He lost both cases.
* John T. Connor was director of David Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan
Bank. He had also been president of Allied Chemical, in which the
Rockefellers held $52 million in stock.
* Ronald Reagan, former actor and California governor. Reagan, who
would soon be President, had no experience with the CIA. He attended
few of the Commission's sessions.38
Gary
1 Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within
the United States. Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, Chairman.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, June, 1975, p. 264.
2 Newsweek, June 23, 1975, p. 21.
3 See also AP wire dispatch, 6/11/75.
4 AP wire dispatch, 6/11/75, reprinted in: The Knoxville Journal, Vol.
110:140, June 12, 1975.
5 Letter of transmittal dated February 17, 1998 from federal counsel,
T. Jeremy Gunn of the Assassinations Records Review Board, to Cyril
Wecht.
6 Jacob Cohen, Conspiracy Fever. Commentary Magazine, 10/75. In a
12/5/75 letter to Professor Josiah Thompson, Jacob Cohen wrote that
"(Rockefeller Commission counsel Robert) Olsen talked to me at length
about Wecht's testimony." (Copy of letter made available to the
authors by Cyril Wecht.)
7 Dr. Robert Joling, then the President of the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences, and Herbert L. MacDonnell, Professor of
Criminalistics, Elmira College.
8 Press Release, May 5, 1978. Copy supplied to authors by Cyril Wecht.
9 Memorandum for file, from Robert B. Olsen, regarding subject
"Telephone Conversation with Cyril Wecht, MD, JD," 4/19/1975.
10 Memorandum for file, from Robert B. Olsen, regarding subject "Panel
of Medical Consultants Relating to Investigation of Conspiracy
Allegations Concerning Assassination of President Kennedy," April 19,
1975, p. 2.
11 Memorandum for file, from Robert B. Olsen, 4/15/75, regarding
subject: "Medical Aspects of the Assassination of President Kennedy -
Telephone Call from Dr. Cyril Wecht." Retrieved from the Gerald R.
Ford Library
12 Panel of Consultants Meeting, Commission on CIA Activities Within
the United States, Friday, April 18, 1975, conducted at the National
Archives, Washington, D. C., retrieved from the Gerald Ford Library.
13 Fred P. Graham. Mystery Cloaks Fate of Brain of Kennedy. New York
Times, 8/27/72, p. 1.
14 Letter from Werner U. Spitz, MD to Mr. Robert B. Olsen, Senior
Counsel, Commission on CIA Activities Within the U.S., 4/24/75,
obtained from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
15 Fred P. Graham. Mystery Cloaks Fate of Brain of Kennedy. New York
Times, 8/27/72, p. 57.
16 Vincent J. M. DiMaio. Gunshot Wounds - Practical Aspects of
Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques. Boca Raton, Ann Arbor,
London: CRC Press, 1985, p. 72 - 73.
17 Vincent J. M. DiMaio. Gunshot Wounds - Practical Aspects of
Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques. Boca Raton, Ann Arbor,
London: CRC Press, 1985, p. 97.
18 Quoted from the autopsy report in the Warren Report.
19 George Lardner. Archives Photos Not of JFK's Brain, Concludes Aide
to Review Board. Washington Post, 11/10/98, p. A-3.
20 ARRB deposition of John T. Stringer, July 16, 1996. This subject is
discussed in detail by author Aguilar, in: "The Medical Case for
Conspiracy," in: Charles Crenshaw. Trauma Room One. New York: Paraview
Press, 2001.
21 Report of Fred J. Hodges, III, MD, professor of radiology
(Neuroradiology), The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore,
Maryland, "prepared after inspecting pertinent evidence at the
National Archives, Washington, D.C., on 4/18/75 at the direction of
Mr. Robert D. Olsen." Photocopy from the Gerald R. Ford Library, p. 3
and 4.
22 Reproduced in: Post Mortem, p. 590.
23 Report of Richard Lindenberg, MD to the Rockefeller Commission,
signed May 9, 1975. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library, p. 5.
Lindendberg was Director of Neuropathology and Legal Medicine for the
State of Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
24 Report of Richard Lindenberg, MD to the Rockefeller Commission,
signed May 9, 1975. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library, p.
10-11.
25 Josiah Thompson. Six Seconds in Dallas. New York: Bernard Geis
Associates for Random House, 1967, p. 71.
26 Report of Werner Spitz, MD to the Rockefeller Commission, dated
4/24/75, p. 2. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
27 Report of Richard Lindenberg, MD to the Rockefeller Commission,
signed May 9, 1975, p. 2. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
28 Report of Werner Spitz, MD to the Rockefeller Commission, dated
4/24/75, p. 1. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
29 See Report of the Forensic Pathology Panel, HSCA, Vol. 7:87.
30 Report of Richard Lindenberg, MD to the Rockefeller Commission,
signed May 9, 1975, p. 3. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
31 Excerpt of letter from Hoover to Warren Commissioner General
Counsel J. Lee Rankin reproduced by HSCA in Report of the Forensic
Pathology Panel, Vol. 7:90.
32 HSCA in Report of the Forensic Pathology Panel, Vol. 7:91.
33 HSCA in Report of the Forensic Pathology Panel, Vol. 7:91.
34 Letter dated 4/25/75 from Robert R. McMeekin, MD to Mr. Robert
Olsen, Senior Counsel, Rockefeller Commission, p. 1. Retrieved from
Gerald R. Ford Library.
35 Report of Werner Spitz, MD to the Rockefeller Commission, dated
4/24/75, p. 3. Retrieved from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
36 Report of Fred J. Hodges, III, MD, op. cit, p. 9.
37 Gerard Colby, Charlotte Dennett. Thy Will Be Done - The Conquest of
the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. New
York: HarperPerrenial, p. 735 - 736. Reference is also made to: Tad
Szulc, "Why Rockefeller Tried to Cover up the CIA Probe," New York,
September 5, 1977.
38 Gerard Colby, Charlotte Dennett. Thy Will Be Done - The Conquest of
the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. New
York: HarperPerrenial, p. 833 - 834.